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Friday, January 20, 2017

Mystery photo of the Washington Monument from December 1957

Today is a historic day, for better or worse. So here's a little something from the District of Columbia.

It's a blurry found photograph from about 60 years ago — the date along the side is DEC 57. The photo measures 3½ inches by 5¾ inches, is printed on Kodak Velox Paper and has no information or writing on the back.

So what do we know?

That's the Washington Monument in the background.

Many cars are either parked or lined up along the road leading to the Monument.

The trees are bare.

There's no snow on the ground.

That's about it. I did a little research, but couldn't find anything too notable or extraordinary that happened in December 1957 and might have involved the Washington Monument.

It's also possible that this photograph was taken a little earlier in 1957 (still, it had to be after all the leaves had fallen), but was not developed and printed until December. Some big events from the final quarter of the year included the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik in October (a definite freak-out moment for the USA) and President Eisenhower's suffering of a small stroke in November.

Or maybe this photo has no historic significance at all and this is just where all the members of Congress parked when the main lot was full.

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About the Author

I'm Chris Otto, a Pennsylvania resident and journalist whose hobbies and interests include old books, ephemera, history, folklore, alpacas, photography and much more. Never stop reading, learning and asking questions! I consider this blog to be a spiritual descendant of Microsoft Encarta and a companion to Wikipedia. Every piece of paper tells a story.
Reach me at chrisottopa (at) gmail.com.

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